Here in New England, we’re lucky enough to have lobsters on our restaurant menus, live in the tanks at our supermarkets, and for sale right off the boats at our piers. We can rest assured knowing that they came from the ocean many of us can see right out the window.
So getting a fresh, live lobster delivered to your door may not seem like such a big deal around here, but in states that don’t border the ocean, it’s a very big deal.
Whether you live in Arizona, South Dakota or Tennessee, Lobster.com promises you can “click and get cracking” in no time. If you place your order before noon, the Providence-based Web site will deliver live lobsters or frozen lobster tails to your doorstep the very next day.
Unlike competing Web sites, which sell extravagant gift packages and themed products lines that include chowders, pies, nuts and steaks, Lobster.com has chosen to focus almost exclusively on one thing, and do it well: “We sell lobsters,” said owner Andrew Rock, who acknowledges that his limited product line has proven to be a challenge.
The site receives orders year-round. Most orders are shipped west of the Hudson River and south of the Mason-Dixon Line, said Rock.
About one-third of its business comes from gift certificate sales. Many New England companies buy the gift certificates and give them out as gifts to people they do business with. Many of Lobster.com’s customers are in the marine industry, or distribute marine products, and include companies such as Rolls Royce of Canada and Quaker Oats.
“We don’t think of lobsters as a big deal here,” said Robert Connal who works for Valvcon in New Hampshire, and is an enthusiastic customer of Lobster.com. “But go out to Nebraska, Ohio, Texas … it makes a mental mark.”
Connal sends gift certificates for a half- dozen lobsters to distributors all over the country who place large orders with his manufacturing company.
He also buys them to give to vendors, employees, and to use at golf outings where he’ll send a gift certificate instead of sending a shirt or sponsoring a hole. Most are surprised and thrilled to receive the certificates, he said.
“It leaves a good impression on whoever receives it,” said Connal. “The service is flawless, the quality of the product is flawless. It just works so well.”
“He’s very conscience about the quality of the products and making sure people are happy,” he said of Rock. “I just like the way he operates.”
Lobster.com was born through a string of several coincidences. In 1995, Rock was a new media producer and decided he wanted a memorable e-mail address that would pass the “phone test,” meaning, if you could say it over the phone and have people easily remember it, it was a good name.
He scooped up the domain name Lobster.com, thinking the common noun would be easy for people to remember.
Rock soon began receiving dozens of phone calls from companies both large and small asking if he would sell his domain name. He refused, but after meeting a Newport lobster wholesaler thought, “Why not do it myself?” And so he did, in 2002.
As an advocate for local-living economies, Rock purchases 90 percent of his lobsters from small independent lobster operators, who work between Cape Cod and the waters off Northern Maine and Nova Scotia.
Lobster.com has also begun selling organic chocolate bars. The cocoa beans, according to the Web site, are purchased directly from small farmer-owned cooperatives in Central and South America and are then roasted in New England and ground with stone mills.
Lobster.com is also a carbon-neutral business. As a voluntary, but legally binding member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the electricity, gasoline and diesel fuel used to get the lobsters from the ocean to the customer’s front door is calculated and translated to carbon credits called Carbon Financial Instruments that can be traded and offset on the financial institution’s marketplace.
Many forward-looking entities have already joined on such as Rolls-Royce, Sony, Motorola, Miami-Dade County in Florida, and Tufts University, to name a few.
“In a few years everyone will be doing it,” said Rock.
While he’s happy selling lobsters and the recently introduced chocolate bars, he hopes to expand his product line in the future.
The chocolate bars are already being sold locally, which Rock says is driving awareness of the Web site. Soon, he hopes to sell Lobster.com mustard and Lobster.com marinated feta salad dressing.
“Hopefully, people who buy the chocolate bar and remember it will think of us the next time they go to get lobsters,” Rock said. •
company profile
Lobster.com
OWNER: Andrew Rock
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Online lobster sales
LOCATION: 89 Irving Ave., Providence
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 3
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2002
ANNUAL SALES: WND
